Install debian 12 on old huawei matebook

I have an old Huawei laptop that was originally running Windows 10. Then moved to 11 With only 8GB of memory, the system was painfully slow, just browsing internet quite frustrating. I initially considered switching to Linux Mate, but then decided to give Debian 12 a try. I used Debian between 2004 to 2015 so I know how good it is.

I downloaded the minimal USB stick image of Debian 12 from here and started the installation process. The entire installation took only about 40 minutes, which was surprisingly quick.

Looks like Debian still use old installer which does not have any desktop, just jump to installation then next next next, just be careful about disk formatting, I used full disk after all I was not planning to keep any files and it went smooth.

After the installation was complete, I was amazed by the performance improvement - the system now restarts in around 7 seconds, which is incredible compared to the sluggish Windows 11 boot times.

I’m currently using the Cinnamon desktop environment, which feels just right for my needs. While Gnome seems too resource-heavy and KDE feels a bit alien(protos-star craft), Cinnamon provides a perfect balance of functionality and performance. I might give XFCE a try in the afternoon, but for now, I’m really impressed with both the speed and workflow that Debian 12 with Cinnamon offers.

Here are some photographs from installation